


Waiting in the rain

by imsfire



Series: Guau-guau 'verse [5]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: AU - our world, Background Bodhi Rook/Luke Skywalker - Freeform, Birdwatching, Character Study, F/M, Feels and fluff, Found Family Feels, Gen, Guau-guau 'verse, Rain, background Cassian Andor/Jyn Erso - Freeform, just a snippet of Cassian thinking, taking pleasure in nature
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-14
Updated: 2019-06-14
Packaged: 2020-05-12 00:17:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19217746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imsfire/pseuds/imsfire
Summary: He’d been alone for so long, and then alone but for Kay.Cassian Andor, waiting for his friends one evening after work, reflects on loneliness, love and the rain.





	Waiting in the rain

**Author's Note:**

> For Celebrate Rogue One 2019, week two, day five; themes, Cassian and Alone.  
> Happily my mind went from "alone" to "no longer being alone" so this is a brief snippet of Cassian thinking soft and gentle thoughts while standing under a tree in the rainy British summer.

Three goldfinches fly into the tree above Cassian’s head as the first drops of another shower begin to fall.  He watches the little birds as they hop about, twittering to one another in tiny chirrups.   So delicate, so sweet.  So hungry.  They’re picking along the edge of each twig constantly, searching for – what?  No seeds ripe yet at this time of year; bugs, maybe, tiny caterpillars, greenfly, ants…

They feed and twitter and sing, and the rain falls softly and sings too, whispering its music among the leaves. 

A cold droplet hits his neck and slides down under his collar.  He’s been staring entranced at the finches for long enough that the tree is wet through.  Pretty soon, so will he be.  Not a shower, then.   Ah, the British summer.

He has an umbrella - after all, the British summer - but he doesn’t want to put it up yet.  The birds, and the tree and the rolling grey storm clouds coming up over the Thames, are all too beautiful to hide from sight behind its utilitarian black nylon.  The tree is a maple of some kind, with toothed palm-like leaves of almost glaucous green, and long dangling bunches of young keys, with twinned blades shining rose-pink in the saturated light.

Far too beautiful to hide.

The goldfinches fly off with a sudden flurry of wings and flutter of sweet voices.  Cassian is getting pretty wet too, but he’s happy to wait in the rain.  It’s one of the things that still holds him apart from his new British family and friends.  Jyn and Bodhi – and Kay, for that matter – all share a certain lugubriousness about the weather.  But to someone raised in a hot dry climate, rain like this is a welcome sight; steady and soothing, nourishing the thirsty land.

Luke, of all people, gets it absolutely; the high desert of California seldom sees rain from one year’s end to the next, and Luke relishes it.  Can be found walking happily with his head bare to the elements in all weathers.  So long as he’s with Bodhi he barely seems to notice.

As he thinks of them, there they are; Jyn and Kay, and Bodhi and Luke, all coming into view on the towpath.  Kay is soaked, his rough coat flattened as though he’s been swimming.  He strides onward with the grim expression of an explorer whose expedition leader is feared lost forever in the featureless jungle.  Jyn and Bodhi have umbrellas up; hers is patterned with leaves, his is purple, with polka-dots.  And Luke is in gym gear, and of course bareheaded.  His fleece top even has a hood, but he isn’t using it. 

They haven’t seen Cassian yet; he’s waiting here alone at the top of the slope, and they move out of the shadow of the bridge arch and slow down, chatting for a moment.  The silvery, stormy light on the river frames their figures, it’s like a painting, an impression of summer rain, of three people and a dog amid the green and grey of a wet London. 

A sudden onrush of joy strikes him, soaking out from his heart to leave him grinning in the rain, stupidly, utterly happy.  _My family.  My friends.  Beloved Jyn, precious Kay.  My people, so dear to me, there they are, right there, and I love – I love._

_I love._

He’d been alone for so long, and then alone but for Kay.  Had never thought, when he left his home to escape the past, that he’d find so much healing, and so much love, in this new land where his mother’s blood sprang.  But here he is, and here they are.

He raises one arm and calls “Hey!” and Kay looks up.  Leaps forward with a gleeful bark.  Jyn laughs as the lead goes taut and he pulls her uphill.  They all come up the path towards him, with Kay bounding ahead and straining on the leash. 

His family.


End file.
